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What went wrong? That’s the question all political commentators, campaign strategists and journalists are asking these days in the fallout leading from the 2016 elections.

Strategy first! Whether you are talking about video marketing, content marketing, or about a political campaign, it has to start with clear strategy (don’t confuse strategy with tactics, strategy is usually ONE, and tactics can be multiple).

1. Identify Your Audience

Who is your audience, what are their problems, what keeps them awake at night and how you (your business, your product or service) can solve their problems?

It’s similar with political parties, they have to identify their audiences and their problems and then shape their messages accordingly.

“Many brands make the mistake of producing marketing videos designed to target every audience, thinking that by creating video content that appeals to greater numbers of viewers, thy’ll get greater leads and sales!“

Often there are many different audiences and each one of them requires a different approach, different tactics and different messages.
So, identify your audience(s) and develop personas. Without knowing your audiences you won’t be able to identify their problems, so it’d be hard to develop a meaningful message that would resonate with them.

2. Have a Clear Message – Be Specific!

Your message might be fit for your audience, but is it specific enough. Make your message clear and easily understood – and do this quickly.

“Having a video (or other content) that conveys one main message is essential to ensure your viewers have a clear understanding.”

Your message has to resonate with your audience, they need to know from your message that you feel their pain, in business (you might have problem of getting leads, or poor conversion…) in politics (they don’t want to pay more for doctor visits or scans, or they are underemployed…).

What exactly do you want your video campaign to achieve? Does the resulting video aim to increase brand awareness? Increase leads and sales? By how much? What specific numbers? ‘’Grow your audience with social media’’ will get you nowhere, but “Increase the traffic to your website with Facebook Ads” is specific.

3. Tell a Story – (vs telling your slogans or a tagline)

“Jobs & Growth”, or “People First” means nothing if there is no story to support it.

Everyone loves a good story. Stories delight, motivate, challenge, anger and touch us.
Voters don’t have time to read through pages of data about your policies. They simply want to get a feel for who you are as a person and know that you can be trusted to do a good job for them. Identifying a few key story points to tell in your campaign is the best way to gain their trust, help them develop a feel for what you’re all about.

Slogans can only be effective if there is a story behind them. They need to know your story, then following up with your slogan won’t be a problem – they now know what you mean.

So, don’t assume that your potential customers know what your tag line stands for or your slogan, they need to know the full story; who you are, what you stand for, tell them a story how your product or service have solved the problem for your existing clients etc…

Video’s been huge in recent years, from YouTube’s cats & dogs, branded videos, Facebook’s native videos and of course, no surprise that video is a big weapon used in politics and elections more than ever.

When the government released (obviously rushed) their latest video ad, media both online and offline attacked it as being fake and nicknamed it #FakeTradie Video Ad.

So, if you are a business owner or a marketing / advertising professional, I highlighted a few points, few critical errors that can serve as video marketing lessons to brands, both businesses and organisations, lessons that can be very useful when you approach your next video marketing project.

1. MAINTAINING or ESTABLISHING TRUST

Trust is crucial when it comes to both politics and business, you’d agree.
It’d be hard to find two areas of life where trust would be more important, yet again and again we are witnesses of both brands and political parties playing with TRUST – a commodity that is so hard to gain and so easily to squander.

Commentators and media have been very critical of a few different points in this video (you can watch the video ad just below); authenticity – ceramic mug, silver bracelet, watch… they all don’t have the place in a workplace and environment this trade is supposedly a part of.

Online videos have a big advantage over other marketing content: the human touch it brings to brands. When real people appear in your video it gains the trust of your users and, with competition growing between brands in almost every online niche, this trust can make all the difference.

2. OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH & SAFETY in YOUR VIDEO

“He wears high-vis and sits next to a saw.” – questions asked by many journalists and social media commentators. (This point can also go under the TRUST issue.)

When planing or producing your videos, it’s very important to observe any occupational health and safety issues that might arise.
Your video producer might not be aware of any OH & S requirements in your workplace, but a good one will definitely remind you to observe any potential OH & S requirements during the pre production or planing stage.

“Last thing you want is to complete your video, upload it… and after all this hard work only to realise that your worker should not be sitting next to a saw, for example!“

3. CLEAR MESSAGE

One of 3 starting points when embarking on a video marketing journey and creating a video(s) for you brand is your Message (the other two are your video’s Purpose and your Audience).

Some commentators criticised video’s confused message and its inconsistency with the campaign. I’m not going to be a judge on that, I’m not a political commentator, I guess it can be argued that the ad has focussed on a specific, very targeted audience and that the message was delivered in a language that is familiar to that audience.

Still, your video should not attempt to cover more than one main message.
Having a video that conveys ONE main message is essential to ensure your viewers have a clear understanding.

If you’ve got to say more, make another video. In terms of content marketing and also SEO, it makes a perfect sense to produce multiple videos, or video series.

“Having a video that conveys one main message is essential to ensure your viewers have a clear understanding.”

4. TELL YOUR STORY – Don’t READ Your Story!

There were numerous calls about presenter (yes, he is a real tradie) waffling, obviously reading from a teleprompter.

For this type of video, again, where trust and authenticity is crucial, you cannot afford to have narration that is not perfect.
Talking down the barrel, straight to camera, can be challenging for most people and if you are not trained actor or a seasoned presenter, you are going to struggle.

This is one of the most important things to get right if you are attempting to make a video in a “storytelling style” – your talent (whether real or hired) has to be persuasive on camera.

Storytelling is one of the most effective ways to make a video and connect to your audience because people crave the emotional and powerful connection that comes through telling a story.

5. DO YOUR HOMEWORK – PLAN in DETAILS

Planing and Pre-Production stage are very important, alongside the strategy which comes first.
So, once you have set your strategy and you know which type of video you are going to produce, do your homework, plan thoroughly.

Little things like a wrong tea cup, a bracelet on your hand, or big ones like “sitting next to a saw” can ruin all your hard work and of course require a reshoot which may be very costly.

Do your homework, plan meticulously, preview the video before an approval. Some mistakes can be spotted in the editing stage and require a reshoot, but even that can cost you extra, at least you haven’t released a video that will hurt your brand.
That’d be way more costly!

Please leave a comment or shoot us a question about your next video project.

Video4Marketing blog is powered by VideoVault your local video production studio.

Last week was my son’s 10th birthday and as most parents do, we are trying to pick an appropriate present for his age. Interesting thing is; the older they get, the job is becoming easier and easier for us – they already know what they want!

Our son wanted an iPod Touch. He already knew the features, in what colours they come, and which colour he’d want… Everything was decided, easy task for parents. Of course, we asked him, why iPod – he said:

“All my friends have it!”

Simple. the force that influences you every day when it comes to decision making, from the biggest decisions like which school to choose for your children, down to the smaller every day choices like where to go for lunch, is called social proof.

But what about us in business, how do we use Social Proof in our marketing?

Marketing, to a large degree is about social proof. In an article about social proof, TechCrunch clearly identified 5 different categories of social proof:

1. Expert Social Proof: Approval from a credible expert, such as an infdustry blogger or other authority

2. Celebrity Social Proof: Approval or endorsement from celebrities, especially those that are unpaid

3. “Wisdom of the crowds” Social Proof: Approval from a large group of people (like why you were Nike shoes)

4. “Wisdom of your friends” Social Proof: Approval from your friends or people you know (like the above case mentioned about iPod Touch)

5. User Social Proof: Approval from current users of the product/service, such as customer testimonials, case studies, and reviews.

Testimonials are great form of user social proof, publishing testimonials and case studies allows you to highlight the positive experiences of your customers and evoke the “I’ll have what she’s having”effect.

While written testimonials are OK and are widely used in marketing, video testimonials are by far more effective. For several reasons;

First one is the fact that many people are not 100% convinced in the authenticity of a written testimonial, secondly the nature of video is that is more persuasive, you can here the customer, see it and pick up that non-verbal communication that reassures us – this is genuine, as human eye (and ear) is very well trained to pick up when something is fake.

Finally, video testimonial can be easily amplified, for example; firstly by number of views the video attracts, number of likes is also a good social proof. You can track how many views you are getting from other sites, from your channel, or from website. A written testimonial is just sitting on your website and is only accessed by your website visitors.

Video testimonial can be further shared on your Facebook page, by embedding, in your tweets and on your LinkedIn page (both personal and company page).

Then you can share it in your blog and all those views are adding up and contributing to your brand’s social proof and ultimately to better conversion.

No matter what businesses or orgnisation you are coming from, video marketing should not be ignored especially in this new social world.

According to Google (2011) 68% of business travelers watch TRAVEL related videos online. Among those, 68% are thinking about a trip. Also according to Google 46% of personal travelers watch travel related videos, vs. 36% just two years ago. Google/OTX, The Traveler’s Road to Decision 2011

When you add to that recent finding by SearchEngineWatch that latest Panda update from Google heavily favours sites with video content, reflecting consumer demand for online video, the message is clear. online video is very important for attracting traffic to your webiste

If You Build It, They Will Come?

Sounds like an easy task; show the location and its attractions, if it’s a hotel show the amenities, how the rooms look like, the food, post it on You Tube and voila!

But the phone doesn’t ring, and after two months your number of views is still at 27, most of which are views from your staff and friends.

This problem is pretty common and it’s not reserved only to small business and small hotel operators, even the big boys in the industry, with big budgets are struggling to find the right formula. Big budget is not a guarantee that your video will be successful.

Those videos can be of high production value, but they lack few key ingredients that can make them successful online. Producing for online delivery and social media is quite different from TV style commercials or from old style “corporate video” with your CEO in a suit and tie talking about mission statement and company direction.

The Secret Sauce

The recipe for success includes few different ingredients, but secret sauce is primarily in storytelling. In this testimonial video below, Connie Trathen explains why the Vue Grand Hotel’s video was so successful;

Now we’ve seen the success of nearly a year of having Wedding Reception video, that’s what inspired us and encouraged us to now do Conference Video…

With over 3,000 unique views thus far, the success of this video is not accidental, and these views are incremental, measurable and producing a constant flow of enquiries to the business.

Create Video That Works

Complete ecosystem – set of established procedures (from production, post-production to distribution)

Proven record of running a successful video marketing campaign

Networkability, as you distribution is online, your producer must be social media active

Understanding of Content Marketing and Inbound Marketing

Understanding of Organic SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and impact of video on your Google search ranking (websites with video are 53 times more likely to appear on 1st page of Google compared to websites with only text – Forrester Research)

Storytelling

Creative flair

Online video has changed the rules, reducing costs so as to make video accessible to businesses of all shapes and sizes. And social media has enabled every business to become a publisher.

Last but not the least, your promotional video is easily repurposed into other media like blog (or vlog), or into testimonial video, or a training video. This is important as research also shows that travelers watch online videos in all phases of travel planning.

Travelers view videos online during all phases of trip planning both for business and for personals trips (start from Slide 24).

Finally, you can watch Vue Grand’s video below, and as Connie mentioned in her testimonial above, few months later they produced another video, “Vue Grand Conference Venue” with similar success.

When I was approached by DoCare Geelong and had that first planning meeting with Stuart Müller their Executive Officer, I knew straight away that what is going to make this video project successful – is a powerful story.

All the latest equipment, creative approach, smart effects can help, but everything will be decided on our ability to capture emotions and tell a story in an engaging way.

One of the best ways for an entrepreneur or an organisation to get a leg up in this competitive climate and differentiate yourself from the rest of the pack is to tell your brand story.

Fast forward some dozen or so interviews, numerous locations, couple of previews and we’ve had a final cut – the DVD was ready. Big scene, The National Volunteers Day, large group of volunteers and clients, board members, sponsors and distinguished guests…

“Thursday morning went very well and the DVD was very well received … volunteers and Board Members were most impressed with the result.” I was reading Stuart’s email the following day,

“Everyone asked me how did we get those fantastic stories!”

This is the third in a series of three videos you can watch online, each one covering one of three main services DoCare offers::

When we met next time for the preview of DoCare’s induction video we spoke more about the impact video has had in that short period of time; “Video has brought all team together, both staff and volunteers as many of them were involved in the making of the video. It’s a great story and everyone is proud that they’ve been involved…”

Story is how we connect with each other. Wonder why the emerging social networking sites are so popular? The answer is because people crave the emotional and powerful connection that comes through telling a story.

The best brand stories are irresistible, compelling and provocative in a way that your target audience is going to consume, seamlessly and effortlessly. Telling that kind of brand story will position you and your company as a leader in marketplace.

Take Apple, for example. Its brand story challenges you to “think different”, to join the group and the cause. To adopt an innovative and pioneering spirit and to dare to get “The computer for the rest of us.”

Why is storytelling important to your business?

An authentic brand story makes you memorable.

It differentiates you as desirable.

It brings your brand to life.

Your target market becomes hugely responsive.

It positions you as an expert in your field.

If you’re ready to start shaping your brand story, remember this tip: If you want others to recognise you, the best way is to recognise yourself first. Before you tell your brand story, recognsise the kind of message and meaning you want to embed in your story.